We briefly talked about each word, making sure no one was confused about what the words said, and then we played a game or two to practice with instant word recognition.Īfter about three days of playing games with the picture sides of the words showing, I would tell the children we were going to play “The Weakest Link!” (That was back in the day when that show was still airing so the children knew what it was about). The children loved the color and images so it was very easy to keep their attention on the lesson. In the pocket chart were the first grade group of sight word flash cards we were dealing with. I had an easel and on the easel I draped a pocket chart. Practice teacher-led instructionĮach morning, right after the children completed their few minutes of “morning work” (to give everyone a chance to fully wake up, figure out where they were, and allow time for everyone to arrive for the day) we’d gather on the rug where we learned anything new we had to learn in reading. It was surprising how the children took ownership of the process in this way. That copy of the checklist was theirs to mark off the words as they worked on them. When we were deeper into the year and they had more ability to actually make little sentences, they made little sentences with those words. I am not entirely sure if this was a mistake or intentional.) and they could ask me or a neighbor if they were not sure of the word, but then I asked them to write the word and draw a picture that went with it. So I had the children, as part of their morning work, choose three words from their list (I was at this point deviating away from the lock step instructions I had been given. Establish a morning routineĪt some point I figured out that routine would be my friend. Next I learned to make folders for the children with their morning work necessities clipped in place inside them so that cut down somewhat on the loss. It only took 24 hours for me to learn to have multiple copies of this sheet available for replacing ones that were torn, lost, eaten, or otherwise disfigured and rendered unusable. The children also took a copy home to give to their parents so they could review with their child. The point was that they were going to keep track of the words they learned by checking them off their sheet. So I made a check-off sheet so the children could each have a copy of the stuff they had to learn for the year. The requirement for the whole year was 100 words. That particular assessment took exactly five seconds. That is all! One child, Lewis, only knew the word “I”. I sat down with child after child with my long list of words they hopefully learned in kindergarten and found to my chagrin that many of the children knew 1-5 words. In fact, this was the quickest part of the whole year. My first task when I began this process was to do an assessment of each child to find out where exactly they were in learning sight words. All of this petrified me, but I had to start somewhere. Here is what I learned from that first year. The required list of first grade sight words was prominent in the stack, along with instructions regarding the order in which to teach the words, and how and when to display them on the word wall. So, there I sat in my office, shuffling miserably through the stacks of paperwork that detailed the knowledge the district expected me to instill in my children. (In short, you can teach to the child so much easier when you have a handful versus a room full!) Add to this the fact that many of the students were not receiving the proper support at home, which goes a long way in the learning process. You can read them more easily, see immediately where each one is at the time they shut down. Obviously, it is easy to gauge where each child is in the learning process when you have 6-7 children at your kidney table. And this was not some cookie cutter, suburban private school. My background had been Title 1, and I was spoiled from being able to teach small groups of children. The first year I was thrown into a regular first grade classroom I felt as though I’d been flung into the lion's den.
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